They argue that God can be known only through rational inquiry and demonstration leading to certain knowledge of the Creator’s existence. They then say that such knowledge is attainable only by proving that the world is originated, and that this, in turn, can be shown only by proving that bodies are originated. Further, they claim there is no proof for the origination of bodies except by reasoning from accidents—or from particular accidents such as motion and rest, conjunction and separation, which they label “states.” A body, they assert, is never without these states; the states are originated, and whatever is inseparable from originated things must itself be originated.

They declare that this principle contains four stages: (1) establishing the existence of accidents; (2) demonstrating that these accidents are originated; (3) proving that a body necessarily entails them and is never free of them; and (4) refuting the possibility of an infinite regress of events without beginning. Once these four are granted, the body is deemed originated; consequently, the world—being nothing but bodies and accidents—is originated; and therefore the existence of the Creator must be affirmed, for whatever is originated requires an originator.

This method forms the very foundation of the kalām that the early generations (salaf) and the leading imams notoriously condemned. Because of it, its proponents declared the Qur’an created, denied that God will be seen in the Hereafter, claimed that He is not above the Throne, and rejected the divine attributes.